1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a packing device for plate-like articles preferably used for packing plate-like articles, such as glass plates, at the time of transporting or storing them.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the so-called one-way type packing device for, e.g., glass transportation designed to be discarded after transportation, a wooden device is mainly used. However, in recent years, because the export and import of wooden products have been severely restricted in light of ecological preservation, etc., as a packing device used especially for export and import, metallic devices are now preferably used.
A conventionally known metallic packing device for glass plates includes, for example, a base frame, a front frame and a rear frame upwardly disposed at the front and rear end portions of the base frames respectively, and a pressing device provided at the front frame. In this packing device, a plurality of glass plates arranged in the front-and-rear direction of the base frame are disposed on the base frame with the glass plates leaned against the rear frame, and in this state, the glass plates are held in a stable condition by being pressed toward the rear frame with the pressing device.
In the aforementioned conventional packing device for glass plates, glass plates are pressed and fixed with a pressing device. As such a pressing device, a screw mechanism, for example, is used to press the pressing device against the surface of glass plates by a handle rotation operation.
However, the handle rotation operation requires a tremendous amount of labor and time for a worker, and it is rather troublesome in a packing operation. Also, there are such problems that at the time of taking out the glass plates, troublesome handle rotation operation is required to release the pressing force against the glass plates, while the glass plate take-out operation itself also is troublesome.
Furthermore, a screw mechanism used as a pressing device is generally complicated in structure, and it is expensive. Especially, when a screw mechanism is employed in the so-called one-way type packing device, it may result in cost rise.
On the other hand, as a method for fixing glass plates to a packing device other than the method using the aforementioned pressing device, a method of binding and fixing glass plates to a packing device using, for example, iron bands, is known. However, also in this method, band tightening operations require tremendous labor and time, which makes the packing work difficult. Also, the cases where glass plates are bound with bands, it is necessary to cut the bands at the time of unpacking. Once the bands are cut, it cannot be used again. Under this situation, there is a problem that when bands are cut, for example, for baggage screening at the time of importation, unless glass plates are bound with new bands, etc., the glass plates cannot be transported by a track, etc.
The present invention is made in order to solve the problems of the aforementioned conventional technologies, and aims to provide a packing device for plate-like articles capable of easily and assuredly performing packing and unpacking of plate-like articles while simplifying the structure and reducing the cost thereof.
The present invention also aims to provide a packing device for plate-like articles excellent in versatility capable of repeatedly packing and unpacking operations.